Marco Rubio In The Wilderness Of Rakes, Cont'd

In which Marco Rubio seeks to escape from the wilderness of rakes. Fails.

It hasn't been a great week for Marco Rubio, one-time Future Of The Republican Party. First, it was revealed that, while speaker of the Florida House, Rubio proposed a health-care "reform" that would have covered a grand total of 80 people. (More people than that get injured huffing spray paint in the Panhandle every weekend.) Luckily, his spokesperson had an explanation at the ready.

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By the Feb. 15 Obamacare enrollment deadline, Florida Health Choices had signed up 56 individuals, and as of the middle of this week it had gained 24 more, CEO Rose Naff said in an interview. The state has set aside $2.4 million for the exchange since 2008 — an initial $1.5 million infusion that year and $900,000 in 2013. Rubio spokeswoman Brooke Sammon said the senator continues to support a "true free-market exchange," and she blamed Obamacare's subsidies for luring buyers away from Florida Health Choices.

So having a superior product that people prefer is an offense against true free-market solutions? Logic! Bold!

"If it's somebody in my life that I care for, of course (I would attend their wedding)," Rubio told Fusion TV's Jorge Ramos, when asked if he would consider attending a same-sex marriage. "I'm not going to hurt them simply because I disagree with a choice they've made." Rubio did not clarify if choice referred to the decision to be married or an opinion held by some that being gay is a choice.Watching a gay couple exchange vows may go against the teachings of Rubio's Catholic faith, but so does divorce, the Florida senator says. That wouldn't stop him from going to a friend's second wedding either, he said.

First of all, I know of no state legislature that is considering a bill that would allow Catholic bakers to refuse to make a cake for someone's second wedding, because that obviously would be mean and stupid. But, worse for our hero is the fact that using this argument opens up the question of Rubio's religious faith, which seems to have several different answers. He was raised in mother Church, was a Mormon long enough to become a pain in the ass about it, and now says he's Catholic again, but attends services at some fundamentalist corral presided over by a guy who really is something of a whackadoo.

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Though he's now primarily and "firmly" Catholic, Rubio has recently told Religion News Service reporter Sarah Pulliam-Bailey that he has "maintained the relationship with Christ Fellowship" and often attends services at the church. During his Protestant years, Rubio revealed in his 2012 memoir, he nonetheless "craved, literally, the Most Blessed Sacrament, Holy Communion" (of the Catholic Church.) So, the rising GOP star found a practical, buffet-style solution. Rubio divulged that on Saturday nights he brings his family to worship at Christ Fellowship, and on Sunday the Rubio family attends St. Louis Catholic Church.

Theologically, of course, this is anything but "practical." Politically, it's pretty shrewd, if transparently insincere. And the confusion allowed Jake Tapper to take Rubiodeepinto the centerfield bleachers.

"You are casting yourself as a candidate of a new generation, but there is an issue where you are very out of step with younger voters," Tapper said, citing a Pew poll that showed 61% of young Republicans are in favor of same-sex marriage."On that issue, same-sex marriage, Senator, you're the candidate of yesterday," Tapper declared.

Yeah, that one's not playable.

And then the president went out and wrongfooted Rubio on the most fundamental rationale for his presidential campaign -- to wit, Being Cuban-American.

Speaking outside Café Versailles, the famous Cuban eatery where exiles young and old gather for café con leche, Jimenez called the U.S. embargo against Cuba a "cane of support" that Cuban President Raul Castro has been leaning on as an excuse for poor conditions in his country -- and now that the cane is gone, she's hopeful he could tumble and fall. Jimenez is emblematic of a broader shift within in the Cuban population in America, one that ultimately opened up the political space for Obama to start to change the U.S. stance toward the island nation.

"Cuba is a state sponsor of terrorism," he said. "They harbor fugitives of American justice, including someone who killed a police officer in New Jersey over 30 years ago. It's also the country that's helping North Korea evade weapons sanctions by the United Nations."

Pope Francis, who followed his predecessors in calling for an end to U.S. travel and financial restrictions on Cuba, wrote letters to Mr. Obama and Cuba's President Raúl Castro urging them to settle outstanding issues and clear the way for a deal. A key meeting of U.S., Cuban and senior Holy See officials took place at the Vatican just weeks before the deal was announced, where the final details of concessions to end one of the world's most intractable diplomatic standoffs were ironed out.

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